In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the distribution of power corrupts and abuses the now powerless.
Bourgeois vs nobleman
Baronial conflict
Group Thesis:
The transfer of power between privileged groups and previously marginalized groups inevitably creates conflict.
monopolization by existing power-holders
Political openness
Country's openness towards another
Division between those with education (civilized) and those without (uncivilized)
Chinese Communist Party (CPC) is an alliance with the working and low-class
Lear represents a financial crisis of the aristocracy as a demilitarized class with a 'zero-sum economy'
Lear accepting Poor Tom and other less fortunate people's lives
Poor Tom demonstrates the threat to noble power and authority
Shakespeare universalizes the homelessness theme through showing vulnerability in any character in Lear
Natural rights theory
Competition
Members in society are chosen (not free competition)
Play repeatably protested against government initiatives (bastardy and strangering)
Lear not only stops paternal care for Cordelia but further orders her "a stranger to my heart and me" (1.1.113, 115)
Edmund's feelings of the 'plague of customs'
Edmund's soliloquy: “Thou, Nature, art my goddess ... Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of custom ...?” (1.2.1-3)
Plague of customs: Tortured by man made social customs that deprive an individual of their assumed rights
Lear discovers the plebeian underworld of the 'makeshift economy'
"Prithee, go thyself. Seek thine own ease. This tempest will not give me ponder on things would hurt me more. But I'll go in. In, boy. Go first. You houseless poverty— Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep." (3.4. 23-27)
"The art of our necessities is strange and can make vile things precious."(3.2.70-71)
"Who gives any thing to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlipool, o'er bog and quagmire." (3.4.50-59)
Connection
Losing Power
Edgar loses all of his power to Edmund
Stripped by the plague of customs, Lear disowns Cordelia for speaking the truth to her father
Connection
"Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower. For by the sacred radiance of the sun, The mysteries of Hecate and the night, By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be— Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved As thou my sometime daughter." (1.1. 109-121)
Connection
Works Cited
Fitter, Chris. "'The art of known and feeling sorrows': rethinking capitalist transition, and the performance of class politics, in Shakespeare's King Lear." Early Modern Literary Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A492221635/GPS?u=ko_k12hs_d24&sid=GPS&xid=17e0638b. Accessed 4 Dec. 2018.
Joo, Jang-Hwan. "A typology of political elites and its transformation in China: from 'ideology-oriented/replacement' elites to 'fragmented/reproductive' elites." Asian Perspective, vol. 37, no. 2, 2013, p. 255+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A353518618/GPS?u=ko_k12hs_d24&sid=GPS&xid=48f6a36c. Accessed 4 Dec. 2018.
Zheng, Yongnian. "Where does the Chinese communist party go from here? Challenges and opportunities." China: An International Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2012, p. 84+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A330679089/GPS?u=ko_k12hs_d24&sid=GPS&xid=dbb60937. Accessed 4 Dec. 2018.
Shakespeare, William. "King Lear: Entire Play". Shakespeare.Mit.Edu, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/full.html. Accessed 11 Dec 2018.
Relevance to future discipline in politics
Zero-sum economy: income limited to land ownership alone
'Makeshift economy': temporary poor economy